The Sacrilege of Parliament & the Demarcation between State & Religion
The sacrilege committed by Theo Zurenouc in destroying work of Art by PNG Master
Carvers displayed in Parliament is akin
to Pope Fransis ordering the destruction of the
work of Art by Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel. The idea that by
removing this works of Art , Parliament and the Body Politics of PNG will be cleansed from
Dark Pagan Forces associated with this body of Art Work is a
misguided attack on our aesthetic past that has helped define us as a
people.
The sacrilege to parliament is based
on the interpretation of the Christian Covenant in the new testament bible with the Semitic God of the old testament Bible and that there can be no worship of idols
but that of the one true God
Yahweh . That this idea forms the
Fundamental Philosophical and moral basis upon which Modern PNG is constructed
upon and must be held on to the exclusion of any other belief system to give
meaning and Christian purpose to our Modern Government is erroneous.
This view
is held by Fundamentalists Christian religious sects and find support in
Parliament by Leaders who ought to know better
. Many of these leaders are in a symbiotic and unholy alliance with these
fundamentalist sect to garnish votes at Elections and in return for these sects to receive monetary benefits from their
political benefactors including
Provincial Governments who are budgeting
up to 10% of their Budget and giving it to these sects as Tithes.
Let
those that come later know that PNG is constructed with a clear demarcation between the Religious and the Secular in the
Constitution and PNG is constructed out of 700 tribes that make up
this nation and that while the constitution acknowledges our Christian heritage and deals with the issue of State and
religion in the edict prescribed by our
Lord Jesus 2000 years ago [ Give to Caesar what
is Caesars and to God what is God,s”] religion cannot super impose itself
on the secular state .
It is important for our current elected leaders
to know that the influence of the Christian faith on our land is merely 100
years old and that while it now forms part of our heritage it cannot with its
antecedent history of Euro centric
biases and prejudices replace our traditional believe systems that have been part
of the landscape of this land for over the last 40,000 years as to do so would
deprive our nation and people of a inner soul and render Black people like us shipwrecked
not dissimilar to the Black people in the American Diaspora.
The current
malaises facing the Nation
today should not be blamed on our Ancient past represented in aesthetic
traditional Works of Arts or our belief system
instead they should be seen as challenges that must be overcome through Government practical social and Economic Policies. The Leading Black
Political Thinker of our time , the Kenyan Ali.Z.Mazrui has linked the
Corruption, inefficiency, mismanagement and Decay of Governments and
Infrastructure in Africa directly to the failure of Black leader to mould and
integrate their Nations into the World Capitalist System through the
western construct of Religion, wealth creation,
extraction and distribution and according to Mazrui for Black Nations to succeed they
must hold on to what he terms Cultural
continuities that have defined previous Stateless societies as a People and
adapt these cultural beliefs and social
systems and structures and practices into the Morden Capitalist Frame work to
makes their countries work.
There are however many cultures such as India and
China and those of East Asia that have successfully made these transitions and
have build Morden successful Nation States by holding on to their culture and
belief system which incidentally does not include the three Great Abrahamic
Faith of the world. It is important that
our Leaders understand this and spend time in their overseas travel to study
and appreciate the different cultures and believe systems that make up the
world we live in.
Not too long ago the Great Chinese Statesmen Cho En lai was asked by a
French T.V. crew in 1972 before his demise in the Plane crash to comment
on the contribution of Western
Civilisation and the French revolution of 1887 in particular on Human History, his reply “ It is too early to comment “ . Indeed Cho En Lai has 5,000 years of continued documented Chinese history [which predates the Bible by
another 3000 year ] to give his qualified prognosis of human history and on the effect of Greco- Roman ideals of Democracy and
of the Semitic religious influence based on the Idea of a omnipresent God which
carries little sway in the Middle Kingdom instead Chinese society is influenced
and guided by ideas laid down by great
Sage such as Confucius on Filial responsibility and on the art of state craft
by Sage such as Sun Tsu and on ideals
of religion shaped by the Lord Buddha . The impact of Western civilisation on
the 40,000 year old Stone Age Cultures of the People of the Island of New
Guinea and Australia is still being
written and shaped by all of us who live in it today.
The effect of Western Colonialism on
Africa in the last 200 years provides a living laboratory for Students of
History and Politics to draw lessons from as we try to make sense of what is happening
in our country today and to develop world class solutions to problems
confronting us today . These world class solution will no doubt have to take
into account the nature of the global
village we live in today on the one hand
and at the same time to look into our past and craft solutions out of
ideas that have enable us to survive as
a People over the last 40,000 years and to apply these solutions into building
a Modern State, with Modern Cities, modern towns , modern villages and a Modern Parliament .
While the peace of Westphalia of 1648 has given Europe the building block for the rise of the
Nation States and with it the art of state craft and the imposition of a Ethnocentric
world view in the last 200 years on the
bulk of the World Population we are finding it today in a number of
countries failures of biblical proportion in attempts to get previously stateless
societies and to mould them into the
Western Construct of Nation States. A case in Point is the unfolding drama in Afghanistan
where everything done since 2002 to
leave behind a viable institutions of
State on a tribal people will come to
naught as soon as the coalition of Western Forces withdraw in 2014.
Somalia is
another such country that does not exist as a state but exist as a People bonded
together only through language and the Clan system. Attempts to mound countries
such as Somalia into the Western Construct of a State will continued to fail. A
number of secular State in recent time including Iran and Egypt have
democratically rejected the Eurocentric World view and are going back to Theocracy
or Religion as the basis to reconstruct their societies. If that is what the
Speaker of parliament wants for PNG then he must recommend this idea of
Government to the Parliamentary committee established by parliament to look at Political reform currently headed by the Hon .Poponawa MP
In the PNG context at Independence
provisions in our constitution caters for the ‘Cultural Continuities’ alluded
to by Ali Mazrui and can be found in the Underlying law provision in the
schedule of our Constitution and in the National Goals and Directive Principals
and in specific land use laws following
the Commission of inquiry into Land matter in 1973 . As we all know pre Contact
Melanesian Societies are egalitarian and embrace the Christian Value of Giving and Sharing where
wealth is shared equally making our societies some of the most socialistic in
the World .
In recent times attempts have been made to change our People and
society into a Fully functional Capitalistic one and what we see today in terms
of the Breakdown of law & order and corruption is a direct result of the failure of these
Policy choices. It
would go a long way towards building a more just and egalitarian society if
Policy makes come to recognise this fact and mould our State and policies to reflect our Socialistic and
egalitarian past which incidentally also has a Christian Slant in the value of
Giving and Sharing and Equality.
